Signs, music and free coffee gave the final day of early voting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections a party atmosphere. And voter Curtis Harris of Cleveland enjoyed the entire process.

“I voted early to get it out of the way, and I was surprised that it went so smoothly. I was in line outside about 40 minutes and it took about a half-hour inside.”

Early voter Denise Roznosky of Bay Village, says the hour or so she spent in line was productive.   

Early voters had fun despite an hour in line                                                                                                                         

“It was enjoyable, I met a lot of neat people and many of the candidates were here. I had questions on some of the judges, and some of the candidates I had questions about were here and I got to have a personal interview with them, and that was very useful to me.”

And Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Jane Platten also reports that the early voting process has gone smoothly. She estimates about 46,000 Cuyahoga County voters will have cast early in-person ballot, and that’s not counting mail-in votes. And Platten says that number takes a lot of pressure off of the polls Election Day.

Process went smoothly in Cuyahoga County

“We’re voting about 500 voters an hour. On Sunday we had about an hour and a half wait in line, but we’ve been able to get people in and out very efficiently. This is going to take significant pressure off of the polls tomorrow. We will ultimately have about 270,000 people who cast early ballots, that’s both voters who came to the Board of Elections and those who voted by mail. So we’re probably going to see about 380,000 to 400,000 people at the polling locations tomorrow.”